The Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, has called for stronger action to translate Nigeria’s climate commitments into investments capable of driving economic growth, creating jobs and strengthening productivity.
The call was made on Thursday at the NESG National Green Growth Dialogue, a pre-summit engagement held ahead of the 32nd Nigerian Economic Summit (NES#32) and themed, “From Commitments to Green Growth.”
The dialogue brought together stakeholders from government, development finance institutions, the energy sector, business and climate policy to explore strategies for mobilising finance and partnerships to accelerate Nigeria’s green transition.
Delivering the keynote address on behalf of the Director-General of the National Council on Climate Change (NCCC), Ms Adesola Olatunde, Chief Scientist, said green growth should not be regarded as an alternative to economic development but as an essential component of building a resilient economy.
She said climate policy was increasingly becoming central to economic policy, energy security and agricultural productivity, stressing that Nigeria must build an economy capable of withstanding external shocks while creating opportunities for sustained domestic growth.
According to her, climate interventions must deliver tangible economic benefits, including sustainable jobs, improved productivity and protection of livelihoods.
Olatunde said Nigeria’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) 3.0 targets a 32 per cent reduction in emissions by 2035 and provides a framework for advancing the country’s pathway towards net-zero emissions by 2060.
She said an estimated $337 billion would need to be mobilised by 2035 from the private sector and other sources to finance climate and development priorities, including renewable energy, regional mini-grids and other clean-energy solutions.
She also called for greater transparency and standardisation in Nigeria’s carbon market, backed by credible greenhouse gas emissions data, a net-zero investment plan and catalytic financing through mechanisms such as the Climate Change Fund.
While stressing the importance of policy, Olatunde said effective implementation would ultimately determine the impact of Nigeria’s climate ambitions.
Speaking on climate finance, Mr Temitope Akinyemi, Special Adviser to the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy on Climate Finance, highlighted the need to strengthen the structures through which climate resources are mobilised and deployed.
He explained that the Climate Change Fund was established under the Climate Change Act, with the Nigeria Natural Resource Trust Fund (NTRUPC) serving as custodian, but noted that gaps remained that must be addressed to maximise its impact.
Akinyemi also pointed to emerging climate-finance platforms designed to expand energy access and attract investment, including the World Bank’s Distributed Access to Energy Scale platform and Mission 300, which aims to connect 300 million Africans to electricity while mobilising about $32 billion.
He said the National Council on Climate Change, NTRUPC and the Ministry of Finance were collaborating to ensure available climate resources were mobilised and channelled towards priority areas.
From a development-finance perspective, Ms Imohe Omosede, Head of Climate Finance at the Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN), called for the aggregation of smaller projects to create investment opportunities at scale.
She said a value-chain approach could expand access to finance for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), particularly businesses that lack sufficient collateral to meet conventional lending requirements.
Omosede explained that financing qualified off-takers and structuring funding around their value chains could enable smaller businesses within those ecosystems to access capital and participate in green investment opportunities.
Mr Metsegharun Weyimi, Head of Environment at Nigeria LNG, called for greater recognition of the economic value of forests, wetlands, mangroves and other natural ecosystems.
He said declining mangrove coverage, the conversion of forest areas to bare land and rising sea levels were putting pressure on ecosystems and inland waterways.
Weyimi said investment in nature could create employment and generate economic value through climate action, biodiversity conservation and tourism.
He cited the more than 20,000 visitors recorded at tourism parks between January and July 2026 as evidence of the economic potential of Nigeria’s natural assets.
He also stressed the importance of partnerships between communities and the private sector, citing LNG’s collaboration with communities around the Finima Nature Park as an example of how conservation could support local economic opportunities.
Mr Ibrahim Shelleng, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Climate Finance and Stakeholder Engagement, called for stronger collaboration between the Federal Government and subnational governments to expand access to climate finance.
He noted that only a small number of states currently possessed the capacity to access significant climate finance, urging the strengthening of institutional capacity to ensure that opportunities were more widely distributed.
Shelleng said Nigeria needed to move from identifying climate priorities to implementing them, proposing stronger coordination through three complementary platforms focused on subnational governments, development partners and overall coordination of the climate-finance ecosystem.
He stressed that clear structures and defined roles would be critical to improving coordination and ensuring the effective deployment of climate resources.
Also speaking, Mr Gerald Esambe, Head of Climate Change and Green Growth at the African Development Bank (AfDB), said the bank supports governments through policy advice and financing for climate adaptation and mitigation projects.
He said the AfDB also applies a joint climate-finance methodology to ensure that relevant projects are properly aligned with adaptation and mitigation objectives.
The dialogue identified climate finance as a critical enabler of Nigeria’s green transition while highlighting the need to improve project quality, strengthen institutional capacity and develop investment structures capable of attracting both public and private capital.
Participants also identified significant economic opportunities in renewable energy, sustainable infrastructure, nature-based investments and climate-resilient production.
The NESG National Green Growth Dialogue is part of a series of pre-summit engagements organised ahead of the 32nd Nigerian Economic Summit.
The engagements provide platforms for stakeholders to examine critical issues affecting Nigeria’s economic development and develop practical perspectives for improving productivity, investment, employment and shared prosperity.